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Deadlier Than The Male
[Hen's Tooth Video]
1966; color
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Starring: Richard Johnson, Elke Sommer, Sylvia Koscina & Suzanna Leigh
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Over the past couple years the Kommandant and I have gotten into reading old crime novels and other assorted forms of pulp fiction; watching Deadlier Than The Male I couldn't help but notice it was very much like a '60s version of a decades earlier dime store novel come to life. A quick web search confirmed the Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond character did originate in print form (in the wake of the OGs of crime novels: Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu etc.) before making it to the silver screen and this, along with it's sequel Some Girls Do, were the last in a fairly long series of films featuring him as the hero. Similarly, while most of the Drummond films were made in the '30s and '40s, this was made in the wake of the early James Bond films and, while the character may have preceded Bond by a few decades, this movie - like oh so many others of the era, and since - clearly attempts to tread in Bond's suave British footsteps. And does so with a certain degree of success. Interestingly, in the early incarnations, both in print and film, Drummond was a WWI officer turned private detective, which seems like a pretty cool career change. In this cinematic version he's a Korean War vet turned insurance investigator. On the whole, a job that doesn't sound all that sexy or filled with intrigue to me but, somehow, it is. Anywhoo, the story - not borrowed from one of the novels, the screenplay was written by Jimmy Sangster of Hammer Films fame - revolves around Drummond's assignment to investigate the mysterious death of an oil executive. Of course, this one seemingly random yet suspicious incident uncovers an even larger more elaborate plot to control the world's oil supply, plotted by a typically evil and ruthless villain with a particularly non-evil sounding name, Carl Peterson. (Played by Nigel Green, who played a similar role in one of the Matt Helm movies; Drummond is played by British actor Richard Johnson.) Speaking of the Achilles to Drummond's heel, the title refers to the Peterson's two-girl army of sexy assassins employed to do his bidding. (Elke Sommer and Sylvia Koscina; I think it's implied he has more women in his charge but perhaps he's saving them for future world endangering plots.) Sadly since the insurance industry doesn't have a need to employ a "Q," Drummond doesn't get to use any cool kitschy weapons to aid his efforts, just a regular ol' gun and his fists, but his nemesis does have a giant mechanical chess set in his castle headquarters and can make a hair clip into a bomb so that kind of makes up for it. Deadlier Than The Male might not be the most original or inventive spy flick but as far as mid '60s Bond rip-offs go it's pretty entertaining and worth at least one viewing for fans of the genre.
—Bunny
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